


Mercury

by FemaleSpock



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (in some sense), (maybe), (on someone's part), (probably), Dissociation, Gaslighting, Gen, Kylo Ren-centric, Love/Hate, M/M, Manipulation, Mindfuck, Obsession, Reality Bending, The Force, Time Travel, at least one character death, this fic is hard to accurately tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 17:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9501341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FemaleSpock/pseuds/FemaleSpock
Summary: When he was young he used to do puzzles. They used to belong to his mother and technically they still do. He doesn’t remember what the pictures were, only that he could never complete them. The pieces never fit together the way they should.He can see his father’s grin, so wide it seems to fill the room.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hoping the tags are adequate to warn for the content but let me know if there's anything else I should add!

When he was young he used to do puzzles. They used to belong to his mother and technically they still do. He doesn’t remember what the pictures were, only that he could never complete them. The pieces never fit together the way they should.

 

He can see his father’s grin, so wide it seems to fill the room.

 

“Oh, sorry kid. I took some of the pieces out.” Somehow the gleaming row of teeth expands even further. “Heck, I even cut some of the pieces in half and threw half of them away.”

 

Ren remembers Ben staring at his father blankly. He remembers these aren’t really his memories.

 

“It drove your mother crazy until she realised.”

 

He wishes that he wouldn’t keep remembering Ben’s memories like they were his own. They’re uncomfortably vivid. Snoke has told him again and again that he should hold onto his real memories. With effort, he can see the real memories, the time spent training with his master, but they seem flat, dull compared to the surreal colours of Ben’s past.

 

Hux asked him once when it all started. Ren didn’t have an answer. Hux seems ignorant of it all now, so maybe he hasn’t actually asked him yet.

 

It’s more likely that Hux is just pretending. He does that a lot. That’s why Ren hates him.

 

But sometimes, he thinks that the problem is Kylo, not Hux.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know when you became the only person I could trust but you are, alright?” Hux hisses. “Ever since Starkiller, it’s been…”

 

Ren nods. It’s strange to feel claustrophobic on a ship as large as the Finalizer but Hux has managed to drag him into the smallest supply cupboard possible. “It was a shared mistake,” Ren says, reluctantly.

 

Hux opens his mouth as if to contest this, then shuts it, taking his time before speaking again. “Don’t let me down again.”

 

Hux’s face is very close to Kylo’s, to the point where he can feel his breath on his face. His whole body is wracked with fire. This is abnormal, surely? Why hadn’t they met in either of their quarters? There'd be more space there. He wouldn't feel Hux's body so close to his own that he's practically inside Hux's skin. “Is this…” he starts but he can’t say it. He must be wrong. He reaches out with the Force but he can’t sense anything from Hux. He can, however, feel Lieutenant Mitaka throwing up on the other side of the ship. He’s knelt in the refresher, tears stinging his eyes. Ren can taste regret in his mouth. 

 

“Ren,” says Hux, gripping his shoulder tightly.

 

It’s enough to bring him back for now. “Yes. United front. Hux, I promise.”

 

Hux nods, his eyes searching Kylo’s face. “What did Snoke say to you?”

 

Ren shakes his head. There’s a row of blank spaces where his recent meetings with Snoke should be but it doesn’t worry him. He’s alive. He feels okay. He’ll know what he needs to do when it comes to it.

 

“Well, he told me I should keep an eye on you,” says Hux.

 

Hux is clearly expecting some kind of reaction but he can’t work out what. “Is that what you’re doing now?” he asks.

 

“No. Just-” Hux stops but Kylo can hear the words beneath the surface – ‘don’t let him divide us.’

 

He nods. The memory of his rescue replays in his mind – he’s lying in the snow, blood flowing freely, sure he is about to die. He’s railing against that fate but the cold seeping into his bones is too strong to fight. Then Hux comes. He picks up Kylo’s body like it were nothing and carries him onto the ship. He strips off his black glove and touches a warm hand to Kylo’s frozen cheek. It stings but Kylo loves it. Hux likes him more after finding him like this. It doesn’t make sense but it just is.

 

He blinks back to reality. He reaches a hand to touch Hux’s skinny arms. Hux doesn’t flinch away “How did you pick me up?” Ren asks.

 

“I can never follow these non-sequiturs of yours.”

 

Ren supposes that makes sense – Hux is all about order. He’d probably lose his mind if he experienced time the same way Kylo experiences it.

 

* * *

 

He walks the ship but he can’t stop thinking about Hux in the supply cupboard and it’s like he’s tuned to a particular frequency because he seems to be catching every stray thought of every crew member that even barely relates to Hux.

 

_Better run, General Hux will fire me if I’m late again-_

_Not sure if I can face Hux today. It was such a simple mistake. How can I call myself an engineer when I can’t even…Ugh, it was his stare. How is anyone meant to perform when he’s staring so cold-like…_

 

_The General_ _hates the Admiral and the feeling is mutual. I wonder if we’ll have a new commander in a manner of weeks-_

_I’ve been told I’m pretty good with my hands. Maybe I could help him relax…_

_I can’t believe I just saw Hux with a hair out of place! If only I could have taken a picture, I would have made so much money! Phasma is never going to just take me at my word-_

_If there really were a Supreme Leader, wouldn’t he have killed Hux weeks ago? He and Ren totally fucked up and yet they’re both still here. It’s all just propaganda-_

_I think Ajay 10 is right, there’s definitely something going on between the two of them. Hux is in love. There’s no other explanation for it-_

_Hux looks exhausted. He’s aged ten years since Starkiller. He’ll be gone within the year, I’ll put money on it-_

 

Ren’s suffocating in it. Overwhelmed by sudden hatred for the man he reaches out and crushes the windpipes of one of his loud-minded subordinates and just _squeezes_ until he is silenced. There’s quiet in Ren's head for a moment before it starts again. He could squash every one of them one by one and two more would rise up to take their place.

 

Hux is inescapable on this damn ship.

 

Kylo suspects he could feel Hux even from a galaxy away.

 

* * *

 

 

It happens one day when he meditates through the night, moving from today into tomorrow so seamlessly that he would never have noticed but for the change in date on the clock when he comes to, and he realises that time is one long loop.

 

Snoke has pried his mind wide open and he can see everything now. He can see his body in the ground and his mother touching her hand to her swollen stomach. There’s a child holding his mask tight to its chest. A professor is showing a class a holo of his tomb – a young woman with pink and blonde hair writes in her notes ’45ABY -  Kylo Ren dies’ and then she draws a smiley face. Some young idiot is sitting on his tomb drinking Corellian whiskey. It'll be the last thing he ever drinks because the spirits are thirsty for something else. Ren can taste the essence of him in his mouth. 

 

He can see it all through the Force. The Dark Side has offered him freedom from the ties to linear time. It makes him superior to the rest of the ants, scurrying away in their mundane lives on this ship. It’s painful, blinding almost, but that is the price for greatness. Snoke’s always told him that. The Light Side is the easy path, the shallow way.

 

The Jedi can never be one with everything.

 

That he only receives the memory of this breakthrough seven months after it actually happened is of no concern to him.

 

* * *

 

 

“Ren, what do you have to say about all this?”

 

“It’s 8.53 in Coruscant,” says Ren because that’s where his mind is. There’s a countdown on the side of a building for a special edition of a talk show. General Organa on the threat of the First Order. General Organa is nervous. She’s going to tell the world that Kylo Ren is her son.

 

He wonders how exactly she’s going to sell that one.

 

Hux doesn’t look at him. “Fascinating.”

 

“Do what you think best, General,” Ren says because he knows there’s no chance he’ll work out what’s been going on in this meeting for the past however many hours without extracting the information directly from Hux’s head, which he can currently see speeders whizzing past behind.

 

Hux pursed his lips. “We don’t have a choice. The Admiral is coming here regardless of what I think.”

 

“Admiral Cannon,” says Ren, putting it together. A laugh escapes his lips - he’s always thought that it was a strangely on the nose name for a military commander. Without knowing it, Coruscant has completely receded.

 

“I fail to see the humour in this,” says Hux, his hands gripping the table. “Admiral Cannon is a respected member of the Order and if he finds us lacking there will be serious consequences for everyone involved.”

 

“Hux…” Ren says, shaking his head. They have the backing of the Supreme Leader. The rest of the Order is irrelevant as far as he’s concerned.

 

Hux stiffens immediately. Ren’s not sure what he’s done but he knows that the anger in Hux’s eyes is his fault.

 

“Clear the room.” Hux’s tone is frosty.

 

“What?” says Ren, when they are left alone. He’s not even sure how he got roped into this meeting in the first place.

 

“It is completely inappropriate for you to address my without my title.” Hux folds his arms in front of his chest. “Your conduct during this meeting has been appalling from start to finish. The Supreme Leader told you to work with me. If you were as devout as you say, you’d put aside your personal feelings and just _try_.”

 

“You told me I could call you Hux,” says Kylo, his hand reaching out for Hux’s arm.

 

Hux backs away, his eyes wide. “I said nothing of the sort.”

 

Kylo blinks.

 

“You’re crazy if you think we’re anything, Ren.”

 

* * *

 

Ren’s heart pounds as he realises that Hux is in his room. Ren doesn’t remember when he got there. He suspects that it’s been a while but that he’s only just realised it consciously. He’s so tired he doesn’t know how to think any more – he could wake up in his childhood bed - in Ben's bed- and he doubts he would even notice anything was wrong. It suddenly strikes him as inappropriate that he’s sitting in bed in the company of General Hux but he doesn’t move. Hux is lounging on the sofa and he looks entirely comfortable. He’s in the middle of talking but Ren hasn’t heard a word he’s said. There’s a half-empty glass of wine in his hand.

 

Hux stops. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.” It’s strange, he doesn’t sound angry.

 

Ren’s heart skips a beat. Hux has no sensitivity to the Force. “I-” Heat blooms in his face. The room seems to shrink and Ren is forced into his own body, the rest of the universe entirely cut off from him. The room looks grey in the dim light.

 

Hux shakes his head. “I was just telling you about my time in the Academy – I suppose that’s enough to put anyone to sleep.” There’s warmth in his voice that Ren finds disconcerting. He’s longed to hear it, he can only admit that to himself now that he hears it, but he’d never expected to find it in Hux.

 

“I bet you got top marks in everything,” he offers, wishing he could do more. He wants to grab onto that moment of warmth before it flits away but already he can feel his eyelids drooping. He’s so tired…

 

“No,” says Hux, his voice distant sounding to Ren’s ears. “Not at first anyways. The first term, my ability with a blaster was the only thing that prevented me from being expelled. That and the family connection.”

 

Ren was surprised by this. That Hux had not always been number one. That he would admit to such a thing so freely and in front of him. It meant something. It had to mean something. “Mmm,” he says, sounding less interested than he was.

 

“As I’m sure you can gather, I learned fast.” Hux pauses. “Look, Ren, I don’t know why you persist with this. Comm-ing me when you’re clearly exhausted. Just go to sleep.”

 

Had he comm-ed Hux? A stray memory floats to the surface: there’s wine and he finds himself asking the General to come over and talk. But there’s no timestamp on the memory. It feels like something he’s made up to fill the gap. Or perhaps it’s something from another time. His brow furrows.

 

“Sleep, Ren,” Hux insists again and Ren does, putting aside the last of his resistance and sliding down into comfortable oblivion.

 

 

 

It’s dark when Ren wakes up. He had fallen asleep with the lights set on dim but the lights are off when he wakes up. It always feels like waking in the middle of the night, though the clock tells him it’s midmorning. He can never quite get his head around the Finalizer’s artificial time-zone. On the closest planet to them, it’s late afternoon and he can feel the dim light of the sun on his back.

 

The lack of light always bothers him but it’s bothering him more than usual today. He gets out of bed and orders the lights on. The room is as he last left it. He gets up and heads to the refreshers, stopping as he gets to the sofa.

 

_Hux must have ordered the lights off_ , he thinks. He looks around. There’s no sign of the wineglass and in the glaring light of artificial day, it seems ludicrous to think that Hux was ever here at all.

 

He shakes his head and goes straight for the sonic shower. Must have been a dream.

 

The thought that it had felt so real keeps rattling around his head all day until he accepts the memory as truth. It's just out of place. He'll work it out eventually. 

 

* * *

 

His trigger finger is curled up around a blaster. It’s dangling limply from that finger, as lifeless as the body before him.

 

 

 

Oh, the body. It’s the Admiral - his eyes are staring blankly at the ceiling. 

 

The room around him disappears and he’s elsewhere, nowhere.

 

“You’re awake.”

 

He knows the voice but he can’t place it. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere but his head. There’s shifting in front of him but he can’t make sense of it. It doesn’t mean anything at all.

 

“Ren,” he hears and again, “Ren.” The voice is knifelike but it’s not enough, not enough to cut through the roar of white noise. His cheek is stinging. That knowledge is distant, like his body is scattered throughout the galaxy. Like he doesn’t really exist.

 

It hurts too much to try to be human.

 

“Ren, snap out of it!”

 

He wonders who Ren is. A splatter of panic. He needs to know. Important. Important. If it would all just stop then he might be able to….He might be…

 

There is the sound of air being sucked into somewhere and it’s so noisy. So overwhelming. It needs to stop but any power he ever had is long gone.

 

Then he hears it: “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

 

Ren laughs and the spell is broken. Oh, it’s Hux. Ren blinks and his eyes focus and he seems Hux standing in front of him, in the room with the body. It seems obvious now that he had never even left.  

 

“Hux,” he says, with unpractised lips.

 

“Your face is shock white,” says Hux, shaking his head. “Do you react like this every time you kill someone? No wonder you wear a mask.”

 

Ren knows that Hux is laughing at him in his own way; he’d never be so obvious as to laugh out loud but the clues are there in his tone and the self-conscious downward quirk of his mouth. Kylo doesn’t mind. It gives him something to hold onto. He's in this moment now and this moment only.

 

Hux continues: “Are you going to just sit there? We need to dispose of the body.”

 

“I don’t remember killing him,” says Ren. He puts a hand to his cheek and realises in a rush that Hux must have slapped him in an attempt to snap him back to reality. “Wait, we?” That one word is so kind that Kylo believes with all certainty that he must have misheard it.

 

Hux grits his teeth. “Yes, Ren, _we._ They’ll assume I’m in on it and then where will we be? Don’t think the First Order will spare either of us for the fear of the rumoured Supreme Leader.”

 

Does Ren believe Hux? He doesn’t know. What he does is stretch out his hand and feel the Force rip through him like a tornado. The viewport flies off, air rushing out into the vacuum of space.

 

“Ren, what are you….”

 

It’s easy enough to keep him and Hux anchored to the ground.

 

The body goes hurtling out of the hole in the ship, straight into the nearest sun and Ren can feel it as it burns. He screams and the sound stretches on and on until he uses up the air in his lungs and he’s forced to inhale. He stumbles back and the viewport crashes back into place, sealing the breach.

 

Breathing heavily, Hux runs his fingers through his hair, slicking his hair back. It’s a gesture that strikes Ren as inappropriately sexual somehow. “Inelegant,” Hux finally pronounces, once he catches his breath. 

 

“The body is gone,” says Ren, using his sleeve to wipe off the sweat at his temples. He feels fine for the first time in weeks like the fever has broken.

 

“I won’t tell anyone about this,” says Hux. His fingers graze Ren’s arm and Kylo feels it in his entire body, shivers running down his skin.

 

“I don’t know why I killed him,” says Ren. The room is swaying from side to side, like he’s drunk far too much and realised it far too late.

 

Hux gives a bark of a laugh. “Since when do you need a reason to kill someone? Really, Kylo, you’re in a strange mood today.” He puts a business-like hand on Ren’s arm and steers him out of the room.

 

* * *

 

There is heat pressing up against his back and it startles him out of sleep. He turns to confront it and something flops onto his chest. Feeling cautious in the feverish darkness, he reaches out and picks it up. It’s clammy and limp. It’s a fish, Ren thinks. He can feel the fish in Ben’s hand and he can see Ben’s father smiling a strained smile. Sweat is dripping at both their necks. The air is humid.

 

“See, we got one,” Ben’s father says, like it was all worth it. “I can’t wait to show your mother.”

 

Ren doesn’t know what drives Ben to do it but he throws the dead thing back into the river.

 

 

“Ow.”

 

Ren frowns. The fish never said that. He laughs at the thought of it.

 

“I’m glad someone’s finding this funny.”

 

“Hux,” says Kylo, abashed.

 

“Just go back to sleep,” says Hux, equal parts irritated and fond. He puts the hand – not a fish after all – back on Kylo’s chest and it stays there until-

 

 

 

 

 

The other side of the bed is stone cold when Ren wakes.

 

* * *

 

 

Hux doesn’t look at Kylo when he passes him the halls. Ren turns his head to stop looking at Hux. He’s meeting the Supreme Leader. He has no time to waste on Hux.

 

Kylo thinks that Hux's time is finite. He will die, soon in the scheme of things. His spirit will not persist. 

 

The universe survives just fine without Hux. It will be - it is - like he was never there. Hux is foolish if he thinks he can control Kylo. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He’s in that room again, staring at a body. _I’ve already done this,_ he thinks. I already killed the Admiral. His knees give out under him, despair pulling him to the floor. His forehead touches the body. Of all the moments to relive, why this one? The Admiral is dead and he still doesn’t know why or even how. The spot where the memory should be is blank. 

 

There’s no mark on the body.

 

Wait, there’s no mark on the body.

 

He reaches for the blaster in his hand but it’s gone. It was never there. The body is lying face down. With sudden conviction, he reaches and turns it over.

 

Hux.

 

Ren heaves out a breath, righteous anger burning in his blood. Hux deserves this. He was treacherous, a snake. He thought he could play Kylo for a fool and now he has paid. Everything will stop now that he’s dead. Everything will be fine.

 

What has he done?

 

_Only what Hux has made you do._

What has he done?

 

_You have loved Hux since the first time you saw him. His flushed face looked so pretty in the snow._

He can feel Hux’s hand in his. He shook it so reluctantly, already he hated Ren because he wanted to stand alone at the top. Hux tried to make him think this was the first time they met.

 

This is Hux’s own fault.

 

Frustrated tears start to bubble in Kylo’s eyes. His chest is being crushed by the weight of it all. How can this be real? He has to go...

 

He feels a warm hand on his chest. A voice murmurs in his ear.

 

_Come back to bed, Ren._

**Author's Note:**

> So a little while ago, I told myself I wasn’t going to work on anything else until this longfic I’ve been working on is done. I was hoping to get it done by November. Clearly that hasn’t happened and I’ve had serious writer’s block about it, mostly because I feel the fic isn’t very cohesive and I’m not sure how to fill the holes. I’ve just had serious writer’s block about it and about everything else, thanks to my self-imposed limit. Then I got the idea for this fic, which is by its nature confusing and full of holes and hey, I actually managed to finish something! It's not the best thing I've ever written - I guess I was trying to capture a feeling more than anything else - but I feel slightly less blocked, so that's something!
> 
> As ever, please let me know what you think! I just love reading comments :)


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